According to Spotsylvania County school officials, if all parents with tickets had been allowed into the gym for Riverbend High School’s graduation last week, there still should have been 75 fewer persons than the posted capacity.

Parents with tickets were turned away from the gym on Saturday and had to watch on a monitor in the auditorium.

Superintendent Jerry Hill said Riverbend Principal Steve Fitch prepared a detailed spreadsheet of who would be in the gym—right down to members of the choir—and they still had room for 75 people.

Without consulting Fitch or staff, an assistant fire marshal told school faculty checking tickets that they could not allow anyone else into the gym, Hill said. The gym has bleacher seating and could have legally fit in all the parents with tickets had they been asked to sit closer together, he said.

Fire Chief Chris Eudailey said yesterday he couldn’t verify the information until he meets with Hill next week.

“To make any comments at this point would be premature because I don’t have all the facts,” he said.

MAKING ROOMWhile Eudailey would not comment on the graduation specifically, he said the occupant load for a space is based on 18 inches per person. Someone who takes up more than 18 inches of space decreases the occupant load.

Hill said people who get to graduations early often claim a big area, sometimes to save seats for others. In past ceremonies, principals have asked people to make room, but school officials weren’t given the opportunity to do that Saturday, Hill said.

Hill said he understands parents’ frustrations.

“I’m a parent, and if I’d been kept out of my son or daughter’s graduation, I’d definitely want to get ahold of somebody,” he said. “I would be livid. I would be frustrated, and I am frustrated.”

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?Spotsylvania issues two kinds of graduation tickets—to the gym for parents and to the auditorium for other family and friends to watch on the television monitor.

Though Hill and Fitch said this was the first time people with tickets to the gym were turned away, parents who contacted The Free Lance–Star said this has happened before.

Lamonte Yarborough said he arrived at last year’s ceremony with minutes to spare, and he and other parents were barred from the gym because it had reached capacity.

He was allowed in the room minutes before his daughter walked onstage, after arguing with the people manning the door, he said.

“Things like that shouldn’t happen,” he said. “That’s a milestone not only in that child’s life but in the parent’s life.”

After being turned away at this year’s graduation, Maria Martin said she consulted a lawyer.

She’s not seeking money, she said, but wants someone held responsible for the incident.

Parents who feel the same should contact her, she said.

“There is nothing that is going to make me get that moment back,” she said. “It’s gone, and they had no right to do that to us.”

PLANNING FOR NEXT YEARHill said he wasn’t aware parents had been turned away from the ceremony until after the event was over.

He and Eudailey will discuss what happened and try to develop a plan for the future.

“All I can do is make sure this never happens again,” Hill said yesterday. “We will try to come up with a system that is foolproof.”

Riverbend Principal Steve Fitch prepared a spreadsheet to ensure the school’s gym would not be over capacity at graduation.2,326posted capacity

Editor Laura L. Hutchison contributed to this report by gathering the numbers for the chart.

OFFICIALS TRY TO AVOIDRIVERBEND REPEAT

SUPERINTENDENT, FIRE CHIEF WANT TO AVOID GRADUATION ISSUES​

Spotsylvania County school and fire officials are looking at ways to prevent a repeat of Riverbend High School’s graduation earlier this month, at which parents with tickets were barred from entering the gym.

“We need to have that communication happening days before the graduation,” school Superintendent Jerry Hill said after meeting with Fire Chief Chris Eudailey on Wednesday.

He and Eudailey agreed to create a flow chart of seating arrangements and to review the number of tickets issued before the ceremony. Hill said he recently toured the

Fredericksburg Expo and Conference Center, but isn’t certain whether schools will use it for graduation ceremonies next year.

On June 7, dozens of parents who arrived minutes before the ceremony were told they couldn’t enter the gym because it had reached capacity. They were instructed to go to the auditorium to watch a video feed of the ceremony.

Hill said there should have been room for all parents with tickets, but a fire marshal at the event refused to admit parents and did not consult Principal Steve Fitch or school staff.

Normally school workers close the doors once the ceremony begins.

Eudailey would not identify the fire marshal or elaborate on the day’s events. He said only that for future events, a fire marshal will arrive at the event an hour early and walk through the building with the principal.

“There were things both sides could’ve done differently,” he said yesterday.

It is unclear whether the fire marshal was disciplined.

Fire marshals usually are present at graduations, but before this year no procedure existed for incidents of this nature.

Principal Fitch created a spreadsheet of everyone who would be in the gym, down to choir members. Tickets were monitored carefully at the door, Hill said, and would have been difficult to counterfeit.

The county is still piecing together what happened that day, he said.

“That’s the unfortunate thing here that has occurred,” Hill said. “We are not able to give back a graduation that was taken away from parents.”

School and county officials have issued apologies nearly a month after the Riverbend High School graduation that barred parents with tickets from the ceremony.

Spotsylvania County School Board members and Superintendent Jerry Hill addressed two parents who spoke at Monday night’s meeting.

“My heart goes out to you,” said board member Ray Lora. “You don’t deserve what has happened to you.”

Board members Amanda Blalock and James Gillespie echoed Lora’s remarks.

Moments before, Maria Martin told the board, “If I do something wrong, I apologize and try to make up for what I did. What is being done for this mess?”

In a press release issued last week, County Administrator Randy Wheeler said county staff did not appropriately address overcrowding concerns at the event.

“I’m acknowledging the fact that what happened was truly regrettable, that we had some role in that, and I take responsibility for that, and I’m sorry,” Wheeler said in a recent interview.

He declined to name the assistant fire marshal Hill has said closed the doors without consulting school officials. The county is still looking into the matter in an investigation that’s expected to conclude this week, Wheeler said.

According to the press release, Fire Chief Chris Eudailey and Fire, Rescue andEmergency Management staff plan to meet this summer with all five high-school principals to discuss next year’s ceremonies.

Two weeks before graduation next year, fire personnel will meet with school administrators to go over the seating plan and review capacity. At least one hour prior to the event, county staff will walk through the building with school personnel.